


Wendigo

by PrinceHandsome



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-30
Updated: 2012-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-29 09:11:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceHandsome/pseuds/PrinceHandsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Junior FBI Agents Jack Coleman and Joseph Kerr are sent to investigate recent disappearances in the dark woods surrounding The Narrows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wendigo

"Alright, Jack, we can't make heads or tails of your report, so, if it's no issue with you, the Commissioner and I need to ask you some things." Fisk says, being real patient with me.

I'm sitting in a chair in a dark room. There's a desk in front of me, and I can't help but take in every detail of it. It's what I've been taught to do. There's a slightly dirty mug filled with water I'm not going to drink in front of me. Next to it is a big urn thingy filled with even more water, should I get real thirsty. The desk has seen a lot of punishment. One of the legs is shorter than the rest, meaning I can't really rest my arms on this thing, or it'll wobble every which way. There are three one-inch long cuts, about a fifteenth of an inch deep, across the surface. There are many other small marks on the desk, but O'Connor snaps at me, grabbing my attention.

"Coleman! We don't have all day, boy!" He spits at me in that hilarious Irish accent of his.

Beyond my desk is an elevated platform. On top of that platform is a big table, all sorts of documents and photographs and drawings on it. Behind it sit veteran Federal Agent Robert Fisk and Police Commissioner O'Connor. They're questioning me about my latest case. I had figured writing about the bru-ha-ha was enough but apparently they want it right from the horse's mouth.

"Okay, so, like, the beginning beginning?" I ask, making sure I have my starting point right.

Fisk simply nods at me and I sigh, trying to remember.

"Okay, well, it was basically just a slow day at the station. I was uh, eating a doughnut I think. That cute desk worker always lays them out. What's her name?" I say, trying to think.

\--

"Holy shit this is the best doughnut I've ever had." I say to Kerr through a mouthful of powdered sugar and jelly.

"Christ Coleman, didn't anyone teach you manners?" Kerr says, looking at me with disgust.

I swallow and take a drink of coffee.

"Hey man, I never had anyone around to teach me better. What's your excuse?" I say, teasing him.

He gives me a sarcastic chuckle to make his lack of amusement known. The guy really doesn't have much of a sense of humor.

\--

O'Connor clears his throat; making it clear I'm getting sidetracked.

"Right, uh, well, the Chief of Homicide, Mike Everest, calls us in. Real temper on that guy. Catch him on a good day though, and he's sweet as honey." I say, getting back into my story.

\--

"Kerr! Coleman! In my office! Now!"

We hear the chief scream at us from a few rooms away. Me and Kerr look at each other.

"Are we in trouble?" I ask, wiping my hands off absent mindedly before grabbing another powdered doughnut.

"You just got white powdered sugar all over your black slacks." He says to me.

I stand there for a minute, letting what he said sink in, before sighing.

"God damn it…" I say, beginning to try and get it off as we walk to the Chief's office.

When we walk in, the Chief is already red in the face, files and photographs splayed across his desk.

"What's new?" I ask, some doughnut falling out of my mouth and onto the floor.

"We've got twenty missing persons cases from the same area in the last two months. We sent two…God damn it Coleman you're getting shit all over the carpet!" He yells.

I look down, swallowing my bite.

"Sorry Chief." I say, simply holding my doughnut instead of eating it.

"O'Connor wanted it looked into, and so I talked to Fisk and two FBI Agents went in to look around, but neither of them came back. That was a week ago." He says, smoothing out his hair, dripping sweat from anger and stress.

"So you want us to go looking for them." Kerr says.

"Yeah, if it's no inconvenience." He says sarcastically.

\--

"You were on the level with that, right Fisk?" I ask.

Fisk simply nods at me. I nod back and continue.

"Anyways, uh, it really seemed like it was out of our league, and I just wanted to make someone else do it, but Joe, er, Agent Kerr was really intent on looking around. He said we could earn a shiny commendation if we did good." I say, chuckling a little.

Suddenly my throat seizes up and sweat forms on my brow.

"He, uh…He was wrong."

\--

"Are you sure I can't have the 1911, Kerr? I mean, we might uh, we might see a bear or something!" I protest, looking over my own Glock 19, frowning.

"The 1911 is mine, and the Glock is yours. Stop complaining." Joseph responds absent-mindedly.

He loads his 7 round magazine and pulls the slide, making sure the release works fine, also letting a round slide into the chamber. He pops out the mag and loads a new round into it, bringing his capacity to 8 rounds in his gun, plus the two spare magazines in his black blazer, each holding seven rounds. I fawn over every detail, having trained extensively with the gun in basic training and marksman training. I'm a surgeon with it, but I got stuck with the ugly, blocky Glock instead.

I sigh and load my magazine. It has a lot more shots than the 1911 does, but it packs a lot less of a punch. I'm no good with it. I can pop a guy in the chest fine, but I don't feel like it's a part of me. Fisk always taught us to feel that our guns aren't tools, but extensions of our own body. It's made all of us junior agents lethal. I'm still not sure how I feel about a bunch of 12-18 year olds running around being trained in hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship, and the quickest ways to kill a human being. I notice Kerr grabbing another gun, a weird orange handgun. It looks like a toy.

"The hell is that?" I ask him.

"Flare gun. In case we need eyes in the sky." Kerr explains.

After we've got our matching suits on we head outside the station. Kerr always drives, because he has his driver's license. I'd complain that Fisk wouldn't let me get one early, despite making me a Homicide Detective and an FBI Agent and giving me a gun, but I can't drive worth shit. I'd probably kill more people than I'd save.

Supposedly Me and Kerr are gonna go meet up with a group of three or four hunters who live near the woods. Some kids have gone missing while playing outside, and some of these rednecks are about to take the law into their own hands, so we're gonna step in and hope we can work out some kind of alliance of some sort. I hate to say it, but I'm pretty sure at least some of these people are dead. I've lived in The Narrows almost my entire life, and people usually know to stay away from the woods. A lot of folk tales about the area, and supposedly the Indians who lived here before us white guys had a bunch of legends about it too. It's just…spooky.

\--

"We're not questioning the details of the case and how you got to where you were, Agent Coleman. We're more focused on what exactly happened once you got into the forest." O'Connor says, obviously getting impatient.

O'Connor doesn't like me. He doesn't like any of us Junior Agents. I can't really blame him, I guess. Most of us are glory hounds. If we don't work our way up, we get fast-tracked. It wasn't our fault, though. I didn't ask for this. None of us did. Still, I can see why he'd be pissed. A bunch of kids swooping in and aiming to take my job? I'd be pretty pissed off too.

"I was getting to that part." I say, annoyed with the constant interruptions breaking my train of thought.

\--

We approach the group of yokels and flash our badges. I let Kerr do the talking. I look like a kid. Well, I am a kid. Only fifteen years old, and I'm on the Homicide Squad. Kerr's 18, got swooped up a little later in life than the rest of us. I envy his ability to not be questioned about his age at every turn.

"I'm Special Agent Joseph Kerr. That's my partner, Special Agent Jack Coleman. We've been sent by The Narrows Police Department to investigate the disappearances of over twenty residents, including two veteran FBI agents." He says robotically.

Kerr has always been straight to business, and straight to hostility. He's always throwing racial slurs around before people have a chance to react. He's quick to anger, even more than I am, and that's really saying something.

"Yer partner…He looks a little young." One of them says through a mouthful of chewing tobacco.

Each one of these guys is the picture of redneck life. A lot of them are wearing dirty, patchwork clothing, with matching jeans or overalls to go with them. They're packing heat, though. I'm fairly certain a lot of this is illegal. One of them unloads a case full of guns. Inside are a couple generic looking double barreled shotguns and handguns, one of which I identify as a Beretta 92FS, or at least something close to it. Then they get out the heavy stuff. One of them gets out some kind of assault rifle, something that looks like an AK-47, although I don't think they make those any more. Another one of them pulls out a full sized Uzi, extending the stock and checking the magazine. I can see by the fire selector switch that it's full-auto, and therefore is illegal for civilians to own. I don't say anything about it, though. To be honest, I don't mind the extra firepower.

"Don't worry about his age, he's a good shooter, and a good detective. We're both working with Homicide. Nothing official yet, but we believe that the missing people are in danger, so we'd like to get your help in checking it out." Joseph says, taking a look at the sky.

It's about one in the afternoon. We have plenty of time to get in and look around, but I don't know if we'll find anyone. The woods are deep. I don't think anyone knows where it ends, to be honest.

"Well no shit they're in trouble. People don't just disappear in the woods fer weeks and come out okay. We're lookin' for the sonnuvabitch who did this." The yokel says, some dribble running down his chin.

Kerr keeps looking at the sun, checking his watch briefly.

"Well then, I think you and I are on the same page. You know, there's a saying I've heard before. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'." Joseph says.

To my surprise, he smiles, holding his hand out for a handshake.

"I think you and I are going to work well together, sir."

The redneck smiles back and shakes his hand.

I suddenly feel a lot more confident in cracking this case.

\--

"Joseph Kerr, making friends. Never thought I'd see the day." Fisk says, smiling a little.

"So, you made friends with the locals, and you went into the woods. What did you find?" O'Connor asks.

"Fuck all." I respond, sighing and shaking my head.

"We, uh, we found jack shit, really. There were a couple old cabins and abandoned cars that looked like they had been stripped for parts. We found some blood, too, but one of the hunters said it was just deer blood. I don't know how he could tell, but we trusted him." I say, elaborating.

O'Connor looks down at a piece of paper, probably either mine or Kerr's case report.

"The report says you boys didn't come back until two days later, though. What happened?" O'Connor asks.

I notice O'Connor has a lot more questions than snappy comebacks today. Makes me happy. I've had a rough week.

"They persuaded us to set up camp and stay, so we could start out fresh, deep in the woods. Saying that now, it sounds like a pretty dumb idea, but we were so tired and desperate to find something that we agreed." I say, wiping some sweat off my forehead with a handkerchief I keep in the front pocket of my blazer.

\--

I poke at the fire with a stick, not really knowing what I'm accomplishing by doing so. I'm just antsy, and nervous. Kerr talked me into staying in the woods for the night. I mean, sure, combined we have enough firepower to give the busted military we have a run for its money, but the air just feels weird. Sinister, I guess. One of the locals is playing a guitar, and it's making me sick. I get up and head into the forest, telling them I need to go take a piss. Kerr warns me not to stray far, but I ignore him. I need to get away from them, and just get some fresh air in my lungs. Fresh air that doesn't taste like smoke and ash.

I walk into the darkness, and it embraces me like a pall, a cloak. It feels heavy, as if it's a physical object. I lean against a tree about twenty to thirty feet away from the fire, observing it from afar, trying to clear my head. Even from here I can see Joseph's features, highlighted by the crackling flame.

Joseph Kerr, my partner, heterosexually speaking. He's an eighteen year old Junior FBI Agent and Homicide Detective. I guess at this point he isn't really a junior agent, seeing as how he's an adult. He has the kind of brow that makes it look like he's scowling at everyone all the time. He also has the kind of mouth and jaw that makes it look like he's frowning. When he smiles it seems harsh and insincere, and when he's angry, well, not a whole lot changes. He's just generally a bitter and pissed off person, I guess.

I hear a groan and freeze. It isn't human. Sounds like something big, and close. I can tell the guys at camp heard it too, because they stop what they're doing and look in my direction. One grabs a gun. I look around and spot a bear, a fluffy brown coat of fur on him, slowly approaching me. I hold my ground, looking down at it. It looks like it's limping. I slowly crouch down so that I'm on its level, and when it reaches me, it simply falls over, onto its side. I start petting the side of its head as it dies, looking it over. Male adult brown bear, pretty common around these parts. Something shredded his side really badly. Something with long, sharp claws.

Kerr jogs up to me, his 1911 in one hand, cocked and ready to go, his maglite in the other, casting a blinding light over whatever he points it at.

"The hell happened to this thing?" He asks.

"Dunno. Something with big claws tore the fuck out of it. Looking at his teeth and claws, he didn't get a hit in, so it must have been fast." I say, inspecting the body.

"You're better with animals than I am, Coleman. What did it?" Kerr asks, leaning down and shining his flashlight on the bear.

I begin to look at the claw marks, but we're interrupted by one of the hunters, who spits a wad of chewing tobacco into the dirt next to us.

"Wendigo." He states.

Me and Kerr look at each other, confused.

"What was that?" I ask.

"Wendigo." He repeats in his gruff, gravely voice.

"Meaning?" Kerr spits out, already irritated.

"You boys don't know about the Wendigo? What are they teaching you in school these days?" He asks.

"Well, uh, I never went to school, and my partner here didn't finish High School." I say, motioning to Kerr.

"What, so you boys never heard of the Algonquian legend? Never heard of Swift Runner, and Fort Saskatchewan?" He says, spitting out another thick glob of chewing tobacco.

Kerr looks at me and I just shrug.

"I literally have no idea what any of that meant." I confess.

\--

"What did he mean by 'Wendigo'?" Fisk asks, grabbing a page of my case report and skimming it for any mention of the monster.

"Uh, it's a local legend. Supposedly it's a monster that was once a human, but became deformed and powerful by eating human flesh. He claimed there are two in The Narrows, and a bunch elsewhere." I explain, noticing that my hands are beginning to shake.

"Bullshit." O'Connor says in his usual grumpy sort of way.

"No. See, that's where you're wrong. That's where we were wrong. It's not bullshit. It's real." I say, desperately hoping that either of them would believe me.

"Jack? Jack, are you alright?" Fisk asks, noticing that I'm sweating a shaking.

"It's… It's real!" I shout

"It's real!" I scream again.

\--

"God damn it's foggy out here. Can't see a damn thing." I say to nobody in particular.

A creepy fog rolled in about an hour after we got up and started looking. Fog was always something people feared in The Narrows. When fog rolls in, people die. Usually in pretty sick ways, too. Local legends say that the only people who are safe are the people in the Business Buildings, reaching high into the sky, above the fog, and all us normal folk. Well, I guess describing myself as normal isn't entirely accurate, but you get my point.

"Guardian of the Woods brought in the fog. Makes hunting a lot easier for the Wendigo." The old hunter says.

"Guardian of the Woods?" I ask.

"Two of them, Foul creatures. One, the Ram, and the other, the Crawling Chaos." He responds.

"Well that's interesting. Two of everything in The Narrows, isn't there?" I ask, grinning.

"Two heroes, too." He says, pointing to me, and then to Joseph.

Me and Kerr look at each other before erupting into laughter. Us? Heroes? We're cops, sure, but we're not good guys. Just a couple of kids with guns.

"Stop." Joseph says abruptly, holding his hand out and looking around.

"What's the matter?" I ask, looking around as well, trying to pinpoint what was bothering him.

"How many guys did we start out with in our hunting party?" He asks.

I think back, trying to remember.

"Uh, eight or nine, including us. Why?" I ask.

"Look around. How many do you count now?"

I check our party, and suddenly I get real pale.

"Four." I croak.

There are only four of us. Me, Kerr, and two of the hunters. The one who knew the legend of the Wendigo, holding his double barreled shotgun, and another one I don't know too much about, packing his full-auto Uzi. As soon as Kerr and I make this clear, they get real nervous, too. Someone's been picking us off, real quietly and real quickly.

"It's the Wendigo! It knows we're here!" The one who spouted about the legend yells.

"I'm going back! I got a family to tend to!" The one with the Uzi yells, running into the mist.

"Wait, you idiot!" Kerr yells.

I consider chasing him into the fog, but not more than a few seconds later, we hear him firing his gun, screaming and hollering, before going silent. Me and Kerr look at each other.

"I think we should find a different way back." I say.

The other two of our small party nod in agreement, and we start to make tracks the opposite way, through the fog. As we run, I try to keep communication with the others.

"Alright, so there's something trying to get us. Man or monster, we need to be ready to take it down, alright!?" I yell, beginning to grow out of breath, from both exhaustion and fear.

"It's just you and me, Coleman. Run faster!" Kerr yells at me.

I look behind myself and notice that our remaining companion is indeed missing. In my distraction I run straight into a tall tree, grunting and falling on my back, hearing the tree creak and branches snap.

"Coleman! Run! Run god damn it!"I hear Kerr yell.

I slowly get up, grimacing, noticing the tree in front of me is gone. I then notice that the tree is fighting with Kerr, using giant claws to get his 1911 out of his hand and then give him some slashes across his chest, for good measure. It turns to look at me, two red eyes in black pits on its face, glowing faintly. The thing has rows upon rows of shark-like teeth, it's entire face stretched back to expose them, a crown of branches decorating its head. The thing has a decidedly feminine frame, but towers at what I guesstimate as eight foot five inches, its skin having the texture of smooth wood.

I decide that it is not a tree.

\--

"He's going into cardiac arrest. The stitches are coming loose. We need Corenthal in here! Come on! Help me!" Fisk yells, getting some cops to help me out of my state of seizure on the floor.

"You're gonna be okay, Coleman. Come on, stay with me. Fight it, damn it." I hear Joseph say.

\--

I scramble up, but it's on top of me and grabbing me by the throat, choking me before I can do anything. It's fast, faster than anything I've ever seen. I struggle, going for my Glock, but it preemptively plucks it from my rib holster and tosses it to the side, smiling at me. I notice Kerr rolling around on the ground in pain, before I experience something similar.

The creature, the Wendigo, touches one of it's claws to my chest, causing my heart and lungs to seize up, my vision overcome with darkness and shadows, whispering filling my ears. I start to choke, spitting up some blood. I don't know what it's doing to me, but it's killing me fast. I close my eyes, unable to fight, unable to resist, and accept death, deciding that at the very least I'd be able to rest.

"Hey, bitch!" Kerr yells.

I open my eyes just in time to see Kerr raise his flare gun. The thing turns to face him, and Kerr fires. His aim is true. The flare flies straight into the eye of the beast, causing it to howl with pain and drop me, fleeing into the fog.

I grasp my chest and gasp for air, my heart laboring with each slow and agonizing beat. I'm still dying. Kerr rushes up to me.

"You're gonna be okay." He says, firing his flare gun into the air, the heat from the flare eating up some of the fog around us.

I try to respond, but I pass out from a lack of oxygen, ready to die once more.

\--

"Uncle Architect! I got a birthday present from dinner!" I hear Rachael yell to me from the back door.

I am a man with no name, and I've been looking after my best friend's daughter, Rachael, in a cabin constructed for us by her father, Jonathan Lyudoed. Around this time of day, Rachael often goes hunting in the woods, and occasionally brings back trinkets.

"What did you bring back this time, my dear?" I ask loudly, gazing out the windows in the living room.

She walks into the living room, touting some kind of machine gun.

"Oozing!" She yells loudly before delicately setting it on the table.

I smile at her, noticing that one more she comes back without a scratch on her, despite the dangers in the woods.

"Alright, Rachael, it's getting late. You'd better climb into bed." I say, patting her on the head.

"Yay! Dream quest time! Ducky ducky ducky!" She yells, charging off to her bedroom in the strange schoolgirl outfit she's always wearing.

Rachael is strange, but sweet. I can't explain why, but she makes me feel safe. I return my attention to the forest outside, and see myself looking back. I hear whispering. My hands wrap around her neck. I feed her to my friend. He doesn't know. He doesn't know. I jolt a bit as I feel Rachael intertwine her fingers with mine, holding it tenderly.

"Come to bed, Ducky. He won't follow me. Daddy would be mad." Rachael says to me quietly.

"Jack?" I ask incredulously.

"No." Rachael responds.

I follow her, tired, and afraid. I climb into her small bed with her, the both of us fully clothed. I close my eyes, and surprisingly, I feel completely safe in the embrace of this powerless little girl.

\--

"You're lucky to be alive. Two heart attacks in one week. I'm good, but I'm not a magician, Jack." Doctor Corenthal tells me.

"Wasn't exactly by my choosing, Doc." I respond quietly, trying to keep my breathing even.

"Well, you've got spirit at least, I can say that much. You spent another day in that forest before you were able to be picked up, and then after I performed the surgery, it didn't take and you almost died on us again. What did this to you? You're fifteen, you shouldn't have a bum ticker like this." Corenthal says to me, looking over my chart.

"A horrible, monster of a thing." I say weakly, trying to dispel it from my mind.

\--

"Joseph, I want you and Jack to take a few weeks off. Rest. We might not buy the whole story, but I've seen him get hit by cars and get shot and come out looking better than this. Look after him, okay?" I hear Fisk say.

I'm lying in a hospital bed. I can't muster the strength or will to open my eyes. I'm too tired, and too afraid of what I'll see. I have no idea what that monster did to me, but it was bad. Probably fucked me up for life.

"Yeah. He'll pull through, don't lose any sleep over it. Coleman is a tough son of a bitch. I think this is the most hurt I've ever seen him, and he just had a close encounter with something neither of us have ever seen before." Joseph says, grabbing my shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze.

"The official word is that the locals had been killing people and stowing the bodies in the woods. They took you two in, but you bravely fought your way out and took them down. We're going to hold a service for all the missing, and officially charge the group of hunters with kidnapping and murder." Fisk says darkly.

I open my eyes, clearing my throat a little.

"Isn't that a little fucked up?" I ask, not bothering to call him sir in my exhausted state.

"We have three options, Jack. We acknowledge that there are creatures in the forest and risk looking like a bunch of lunatics, we cover it all up and blame it on some kind of mass murderer and make ourselves look incompetent, or we blame it on the locals, give you two shiny new medals, and act like it never happened." Fisk respond.

I stay silent, swallowing. Politics has never been my game, so I let Fisk play ball and do what he thinks is best.

"Good call, sir." Joseph says.

Fisk leaves us, and I let out a sight of relief. Fisk is a good guy, like a father to us, but I still get nervous around him. The fact that he believes our crazy story in any capacity is stunning.

"You gonna recover from that vicious poking you received, Coleman?" Kerr asks, teasing me.

"Yeah, my only regret is that I didn't get a good look at the thing's tits." I say.

We both start laughing, and although it hurts me to laugh, I let myself do it anyways, enjoying the rare moment of friendship between the two of us.

"You're sick." Joseph says to me, punching me in the arm.

I keep smiling, but I see him turn serious as he looks out the window of my hospital room. I know what's on his mind.

"What was that thing, Jack?" Joseph asks me, allowing himself to sound a little uncertain and fearful for once.

"Wendigo." I say, trying to impersonate the gruff voice of the local who told us the legend, causing both of us to laugh again.

"Well, whatever it was, remind me to send a letter to the president asking him to coat that entire forest with napalm when he gets a chance." Kerr says, smiling a bit.

"Make sure to say pretty please and maybe he'll give you a polite letter saying no. I'd be surprised if our government can even afford napalm anymore." I say, grinning back.

"How long are you in here? What did they even say you had?" Kerr asks me, grabbing my chart and looking it over.

"Just a run of the mill heart attack. I think I'm out tomorrow morning. Why?" I ask.

He rubs his chin a little, still smiling.

"After what you've been through, I think we'll got get a couple of cheeseburgers, some ice cream, and two blonde performers from The Bower down the street." He says, chuckling a little.

I close my eyes and lean back into my pillow, trying to fall asleep.

"That sounds nice." I say simply, smiling at the thought.

"Oh, and Coleman?" I hear Kerr say.

"Yeah, Joseph?" I ask, opening my eyes.

I see the Wendigo standing at the foot of my bed, smiling down at me.

"If you fall asleep, I'll get you." It says flatly, in the voice of a little girl.

\--

I dart up in my bed, gasping and clutching my chest, feeling the stitches. It's been almost two months since the case and I'm still having nightmares.

"What is it?" I hear Kerr ask to my side, sitting up.

"Another nightmare." I say, still panting.

"You didn't wet the bed this time, did you?" He asks, looking the covers of our bed over.

"No, no, not this time." I say, falling back onto my pillow.

Kerr rolls over to face me in our bed, sighing.

"It was just a dream Coleman. Relax. I'm right here." He says, comforting me.

I nod, sighing and closing my eyes again.

"Kerr?" I ask.

"Yeah?" He responds.

"The Narrows is a pretty fucked up place, isn't it?" I ask him.

"Coleman, I don't think we know the half of it."


End file.
